Traces of Social Media Marketing

SMM or Social Media Marketing is for marketing professionals who want to take their existing skills and expertise and combine them with social media skills, to amplify their natural capabilities.

Word-of-mouth advertising is the genesis of Marketing. Those conversations are something that happened naturally, bringing buyers and sellers together. Now Marketing is what most of us do all day. Experience is what reputations were built on. The conversations and individual voices that once drove the sales cycle were buried with the advent of modern advertising and mass communications and public relations. The Marketers gained control over the message with every professionally created tag-line, PowerPoint slide deck, and ad. As one-way mass communication grew, so did the Marketers control.

Now the pendulum is swinging back; individual voices are once again being heard and asserting their primal value. The voices have taken on a new roll by creating collective conversations expressed on the internet. The social Web is bringing the consumer voice to the forefront. Micro-blogging on Twitter and Seesmic, Blogs, photo and video sharing, along with the huge social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace seem to be shouting the consumers voice. As a result, some Chief Marketing Officers now find themselves in a tough spot. Anything that comes into the path of the consumer can be restated, remixed, and published. Now markets, at all levels, are dealing with the changes and fragmentation of traditional channels with the addition of the prospect of having an outright takeover of the communication message by the customer. When they agree and echo your message, it is the best thing ever, if they do not, it gets ugly very fast.

Building on the individual freedom and empowerment that is the Internet, customers are routinely connecting with each other and sharing information about anything and everything, from tools and food to lawn care techniques and cleaning supplies. As they do so, they are amplifying and reinforcing marketing efforts or beating marketers at their own game by simply sharing their experiences and thoughts with each other. Because customers seem to trust conversations between each other a lot more than advertising, markets are now finding their advertising message held up for verification on a routine basis and the agencies and public relations firms have little, if any, control over this. This is a game changer - for these industries who are used to being in control.

This series of training is about teaching the skills needed to properly use the Social Web to your marketing and business advantage, and how to join in and participate as a marketer, by incorporating the underlying behaviors that drive the Social Web, enabling you to make marketing and business plans. It's about an odd paradox of gaining control while giving up control. You cannot control social conversations, however, you can become a respected member and valid resource of the social communities that matter most to you. This series of training will help you use the power of the Internet as an influential participant and understand the power of that influence and ultimately prepare for what is next. You will see example after example of the most important trends and get the motivation to create your Social Media Marketing plans.